Is it possible to improve the soil fertility across an entire property…..therefore changing the forage quality and quantity……in turn increasing the quality and quantity of deer? Has anyone ever gone out and tested the soil in any other areas besides your food plots? Are the OM percentages in the soils across the property declining due to using fire? How much could the soil be improved if the carbon we burn up using fire were instead incorporated back into the soil….. increasing OM%......The soil is where it all starts.....Its the foundation

Fire provides other benefits and the trade off in lost carbon is meaningless. The ability to set back succession trumps all. Besides, fire is a natural process.

What if I set the succession back across the property using mob grazing instead of fire?.....Is the loss of OM really meaningless?? Its sure not in my field of sand....it makes a huge difference on forage production

What’s the comparison on a per sq/ac basis of the quality and quantity of forage if you did a long term side by side test on fire vs mob grazing??.... How would that translate to wildlife carrying capacity and overall herd health/quality if we extrapolate that across the entire 200 acres……500 acres……2000 acres??

I dont think there is enuff grazing going on to compare to fire. Timber would take over in a few years in most every area here. If you could bush bog the place every year to keep the trees from shading all the low browse out, then maybe.

I think you could rotate the cattle frequently enough to really minimize the woody species......You dont see many trees growing in cow pastures......That's not to mean that we plan to take the vegetation back to the point of looking like a cow pasture but I believe they would control a lot of the sweetgum type succession.....Still though, If I were managing a property for deer I'd want some areas that started getting into that third successional stage before I reset it.....deer love those high woody stem count areas for cover

Cattle maybe but deer no. Also most pasture are cut. The cleaner ones may even be over gra,zed and the soil compacted to ware trees wouldnt be a factor.

Fire is very important in wildlife management

do your questions sound good to you before you ask them in print for all the world to see??? Asking for me.....

Yes

This is the question that needs answering before being able to really form an opinion

I bet fire would win.

Not this chit again.

I'm not sure it's possible. I think you could toil your whole life and be confined to a narrow window. There are places where you can drive 2 miles and go from growing 150 bushel corn, to growing 280 bushel corn. I don't think the poorer soil can ever be the good stuff. I think you can maximize your current situation though.

Why would you give the edge to fire?.....1) I would think that fire would cause you to lose most of your above ground carbon through combustion instead of it decomposing and turning into humus and increasing soil OM% like through mob grazing…..2) I would suspect that cattle hooves would stimulate the seed bank more than what fire would….and 3) You have significant amounts of organic fertilizer being added to the mix with mob grazing….

You got it with that last sentence......


Now lets say we get a parcel in the good dirt area and we maximize its potential through the same manner.....Now we're talking about sumpin......

Don't forget to factor in compaction from the mob grazing. Especially if stocking rates are high. Ever notice those sheepfoot rollers on dirtwork sites ? We mimic nature a lot.

I'd rather follow the Southeast model regarding fire over the west coast (California) model

I dont see it as favoring one over the other nor as a "southern model" and a "Californian model"......I see fire and cattle both simply as management tools in the tool box.....and I dont throw tools away

This may seem far fetched to some but I dont believe it is......I believe you could have an impact on the soil of a property in this manner and improve the productivity for the wildlife as a result.....I believe you could set up a small scale experiment and prove this one

Stop talking about it and do the experiment on your land, CNC. Let us know how it turns out... in less than 100 words.